Ah, lighten up Bri-guy. The 6ers are going to make the playoffs, and they'll avoid the Celtics and Cavs in the first round. Isn't that all that matters? I know they're in 7th right now, but they'll manage at least the 6th seed, I would think. Detroit sucks. Besides 3-6, it's all a toss up anyways once you get in the playoffs, ya know?

Early in the season, Sp8s got 10 rebounds in less than 17 minutes. He's had more good rebounding games than bad. The thing to watch for is a disturbing trend not an individual bad game. He's proven that if given enough oppportunities, he's gonna do well most of the time.

We know the potential's there, but what he mostly needs righ tnow is the reps. Unfortunately he's not being trusted to try to do more, even when Evans is more or less stinking it up for a bunch of valuable minutes. It's a no-brainer to put Speights in for offense in crunch time. Kid's got all kinds of moxie. I think it may be time to accept that he's probably not going to be an annual contender for the rebounding title but he's showing real 20-10 potential in only his first year in the leeeague. Don't worry, he's still going to be
an above average boarder.

For this stretch run it really ought to be more Speights, less Evans. Speights should not be playing less than 20 minutes unless he's really run up his foul count. If they're really in dire need of hard-nosed defense, slide Rats in there for the O-D switchbacks. Evans gets more than 7 mins a game only in verrry favourable matchups/game styles. I'll bet even Evans would agree.

I realize he's a rookie and he's going to have ups and downs, but that doesn't mean we don't talk about it when he has a down. I talked about what he did very well tonight, but you have to mention it when you see something like 1 board in 18 minutes.

Oh, sure Bri, I agree that noteworthy is noteworthy. It was the "Not a good sign" bit that I was really reacting to. It's just to say that this game, by itself isn't really a sign of anything. Three in a row, or say, three out five? Now that's a growing concern.

Consistency, good or bad, comes with reps. One other cool stat about my man SP8s is his low turnover rate. Pretty darned good for a rookie big man, yes?

How do you think this game would've turned out if DiLeo took 10 of Evan's 17+ minutes and gave them to Speights instead? Think we would've netted one extra basket? I think so.

The Sixers have a pretty good record when Speights gets to play 20+ minutes. Like your previous analysis shows, it's not just about putting in X player, it's also about Y player he's replacing at that position. The net effect of Speights vs Evans is...appreciable.

Reggie killed the team last night. Really killed them, especially in the first half. Plus, the teenagers sitting behind me kept yelling "beard face" at him every time he stepped on the floor, so that added to my annoyance w/ him.

So many buzzer beaters and on the losing end each time. When Harris' shot went up, I was so sure it was too late. They definitely milked the clocked, the ball couldn't have been caught, dribbled, tipped, caught, and heaved in 1.8. Sorry, physically impossible.

It's amazing, I mean he lost the ball with somewhere between .5 and .3 seconds left, grabbed it out of mid-air and got the shot off before the buzzer. He had extra time to work with from the beginning, but the fact that he actually got that shot off...it still makes me sick.

I've always hated that platitude - almost as much as 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'

Platitudes in general - they need to be avoided at all costs.

As for the person who said harris had an open shot - are you kidding me? Iguodala forced a fumble of the ball and his momentum carried him backwards - but he was guarded - 9 times out of 10 (probably 99 out of 100) harris doesn't make that shot - time on the clock or not - the problem is the free throw shooting, both miller and iguodala missed 1 of 2 near the end (if you're measuring 'clutchness', not so much last night) that would have at least made the game in overtime - and if iguodala had made his first - or miller had made both of his - the game plays out differently.

The sixers put themselves in a position to lose the game when they should have been able to be able to win going away if they could shoot free throws.

Maybe the nets got an extra tenth or two tenths (but tell you what - no clock starts 'on time' with human intereaction - it either starts early or late - that's just human error) - but the sixers shouldn't have been in that position in the first place - and i wonder how many of those last second 'buzzer beaters' / last shot losses wouldn't have been with better FT shooting

The free throws killed the, but I wouldn't point at Iguodala. Even if he hits both, it's game over. If he hit the first, I'm assuming you're saying he should've intentionally missed the second. I doubt they would've had him do that, if he misses the rim, the Nets get the ball out of bounds down by 1 point, a full court pass for a two beats you in that situation. They'd still have him make the second.

Don't forget that miller made 1 of 2 as well in the 'clutch' as well - it's not just Igoudala - it's the team - poor free throw shooting again put them in the situation where the miracle shot sends them home - better FT shooting (and rebounding, though it was slightly better than usual last night) would keep the sixers out of that situation.

I'm not arguing whether or not the shot was good - it was called good - protest or not the sixers are going to get the L - sets bad precedent to reverse a call via a protest - i'm just saying the sixers put themselves in that position by shooting 62 percent from the FT line...SIXTY TWO PERCENT.

Hell - 70 percent would be 3 more made free throws - and viola - game over.

Actuallyy if you want to talk about anyone - miller was 7 for 12 from the FT line Lou was 2 for 5 and sam was 3 for 6 - Iguodala shot respectable (6 for 8) and young was perfect.

Wasn't that a different situation - something about the foul count on a player? this is a judgement call your arguing here - whether the clock was started 'sufficiently fast enough' - it's just too much of a grey area - like this year - didn't someone get a basket counted that shouldn't have because of a clock violation or something? They filed a protest and the NBA acknolwedged the mistake - but didn't make a change...maybe it didn't affect the outcome - but I don't see this overturning the game - refs lose so much credibility

tough loss.
The Nets and Pacers are just a tough matchup for the Sixers...they always seem to find a way to lose to these teams. Real and Speightacular is right. (great name by the way ;) )
Sixers are probably going to lose out in the first round no matter what...Its all about next year.
They will make the playoffs...lets see if they can take a detroit or atlanta to 7 games...maybe pull an upset. If they do that and then get raped by either boston or cleveland I would consider the year a success.
Next year the stakes will be higher.

Anyone seen or heard anything on the timeout discrepancy the Nets announcing crew was talking about when the Nets took the timeout right before Vince tied it up. Were Fratello and Marv just wrong in their count b/c it seems like they were correct (that the Nets didn't have any left) as they were saying several Sixer players were asking the refs to call a technical?

If it was correct and they should have been hit with a T then the league would probably do nothing about it just like the Boston/Portland game where Portland ran that play with 6 players on the court and scored and I think the Celts ended up losing that game by 2.

I thought about going back to look at that. ESPN has them using 5 timeouts in the second half, full timeout w/ 5:46 to go in the third, full with 9:03 left in the fourth. Full with 0:42 left in the fourth. 20 second timeout with 0:26 left in the fourth. 20 second timeout with 19 seconds left in the fourth.

They also have an official time out at 4:13 to go in the fourth, not sure where that one came from.

"a. Each team is entitled to six (6) charged timeouts during regulation play. Each team is
limited to no more than three (3) timeouts in the fourth period. If a team has two (2) or
three (3) full timeouts remaining when the fourth period reaches the 2:00 mark, one (1) of
the timeouts will be changed to a 20-second timeout and it will retain one (1) full timeout."

New Jersey called 4 timeouts in the fourth quarter, which seems to me like it is against the rules.

Would like to know what you found out. Great, just another reason for me to stew over last night's game a little more if they did circumvent the rule book w/o the ref's noticing.

I wish there were somewhere to find the live game feed from the Czar and Marv (maybe you still have it on DVR) b/c I cannot remember but I thought they were kind of hamming it up before the inbound of the ball about them and the Sixer players being correct in that NJ did not have any timeouts left but got one anyway. But initially when the timeout was called Fratello says his notes doesn't have them with any left then he goes something like... well maybe our count is wrong. Then I thought he changed it before the inbound and said his count was right the first time.

They did say they got word from their stat people that the Nets didn't have a timeout. I think the confusion was because the timeout around the 4-minute mark was an official timeout. It was an official's timeout because the Nets took a full timeout at the 9-minute mark. If no one had taken a full timeout earlier in the quarter, that would've been a timeout charged to the nets, instead of an official's timeout, I believe.

Check that. That rule is talking about 3 full timeouts, not including 20s.

Here's the breakdown, each team gets 6 full timeouts for the game. They also get one 20-second timeout per half, use it or lose it, for a total of 8 timeouts.

Here are the timeouts the Nets called in last night's game:

1) 8:41 to go in the first - 20-second timeout
2) 5:22 to go in the first - full timeout
3) 5:01 to go in the second - full timeout
4) 5:46 to go in the third - full timeout
5) 9:03 to go in the fourth - full timeout
6) 0:42 to go in the fourth - full timeout
7) 0:26 to go in the fourth - 20-second timeout (the full turns to a 20 in the final 2 minutes)
8) 0:19 to go in the fourth - 20-second timeout

Looks like they didn't use an extra timeout, Marv had it wrong. I checked the game log on both ESPN.com and NBA.com.